My train was scheduled to arrive at 10pm at Bhopal station. I was there a little early around 9.20pm. Keeping up time is one thing I have inculcated from my dad. Hmmm...to an extent. He would probably reach by 8.45 :P And I really hate when people (and things) make me wait for no/silly reason. Posh, Doi, Setoo and my internet providers! Re-read the sentence. Twice!
Well yeah, I was seated when the announcement came in that the train was going to be an hour and ten minutes late. (Dear Indian railways, I recommend you too to read the ‘I hate when people... silly reason’ sentence a hundred more times) So I precisely had an hour and fifty minutes to waste at the ever stinky, ever crowded station. I couldn’t fiddle with my phone or ipod as I had to ‘save’ the charge for 32hrs or maybe more. Of course, trains do provide plug points in all its boogies but you have to be very very lucky to get hold of a boogie in which electricity actually flows through those plug points.
I sat doing nothing casually looking everywhere. My eyes fell upon a person who was inserting a coin into one of those jhang looking machines to check his weight. For those who haven’t travelled much by Indian railways, those are the sort of Future Predicting Weighing Machines (whatever they are called, I prefer this name) which are found in abundance at all major railway stations. I was anyway jobless for almost two hours, 1hr 46mins to be accurate. I thought I would waste a coin on that machine. I wasn’t really keen on knowing how much I weighed but was sort of curious to know my future. I stood on the machine and inserted a coin. A thumb sized card popped out. On one side appeared a picture of Deepika Padukone. Somewhere in my mind I was sure she was unquestionably not endorsing the future predicting weighing machine AND I knew I wasn’t as tall as her (no one is :P ) nor did I weigh as much as she does. So I had no idea and still don’t have as to why SHE appeared on MY card!
Anyways, I turned the card and it said I weighed 57.5kgs which I earnestly don’t. I was more interested in the next sentence which was about my future. So that made the machine an inaccurately weighing future predicting machine. Hmm my future, it read thus, “Previous good deads will do good today”. (deads = deeds) What kind of a prediction WAS that? I rolled my eyes at my grammatically wrong and a misspelt future. I just had two questions.
1. Whose good deeds will do good to whom?!
2. Or is it that the deeds done some time ago will turn out to be good today?
I came back to where I was sitting. I showed the card to my mum who held out her hand just as I came. “57 kgs!?” a slight shriek came out. “I weighed 46 when I married your dad. You are 57!?” she asked. She continued, “All because of your dirty food habits. Burgers pizzas etc etc. If you keep putting on weight it’ll be difficult for us to find a groom for you”. I KNEW that was coming along! I knew it! I wanted to say, ‘Don’t take the trouble.’ How I wish I could say that. But I knew that would lead to a not so comfortable 32hrs journey. So I kept my mouth zipped. Mothers! Bizarre in their own way!
Luckily the conversation ended there but she had a self satisfied smile on her face. She usually does that when she thinks she uttered something profoundly brilliant. I repeat, when she THINKS she uttered something profoundly brilliant.
The train arrived. On time on the new time which was one hr 50 minutes late. Co passengers-not the type I would converse with. There went to drain another chance of encountering the ‘good’ part of ‘today’. It was already past eleven so I hit the bed. Nothing good happened until morning. Took my phone out and found out that the charge had drained out as I had accidently switched on the music button and my phone kept singing all night. The train did not have a pantry and thus no proper food. Had to live on water and peanuts and Lays for the rest of the day as anything else was considered unhygienic. 24hrs passed like never before. Hungry, snappy, frustrated. No trace of the ‘good’ yet. Stopped expecting anything. Maybe the inaccurately weighing future predicting machine was in reality an inaccurately weighing plus inaccurately predicting future machine or another alternative- I have never done even one single good deed in the whole 22years of my life!
Which of these do you think fits in better?!
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